Character: (?) Iggy's pseudodragon familiar.

Adventure: Spire of Long Shadows

Location: Upper area of Ziggaraut

Cause of Death: Flamestrike from a pissed-off Worm-Caller.

Long Description: The party, having a rough time with the denizens of the Ziggaraut, were trying to hole themselves up and get some much needed rest to recover their spells.

The worm-caller wasn't interested in letting hostiles camp out anywhere in its turf and kicked-in the barricaded door. It used the surprise round to cast Suggestion on the dwarf barbarian, who then took a definsive stance in front of the worm-caller. It then began assaulting the party with Mass inflict moderate wounds spells.

Ren, the party's Psion started bombing the Caller with Concussion Blasts, so the Wormcaller responded with a flamestrike that hit Ren, Mace (the dwarf favored soul), and Iggy (the halfling sorcerer). Iggy's pseudodragon was fired to an unholy crisp.

I had a plan for my PCs. After penetrating the Sodden Hold's warehouse, they slashed their way through mimics and invisible stalkers alike, didn't bother to let the prisoners out (fearing more doppelgangers, they actually had the warmage jam the locks on the cell doors with acid splashes), and sent the catfolk scout down to swim the flooded water control chamber (she deftly avoided the encounter with the octopus by using shadow jaunt to 'port up to the top of the control column). They gutted the trainee doppelgangers in the rooms, fought their way through the doubles in the octagonal room (and uncovered the double in their own ranks at the same time), and then decided to rest the night so as to regain spells and health.

They did this in the BOTTOM of the water control chamber. Upon hearing this plan discussed via the campaign mailing list, I began to plan with an evil grin on my face. My plan went something like this:

The party, feeling secure behind the fire trap on the door and the 50' drop, forget that there are villains with magic and collaborative team tactics too. Having swiftly determined that there is an abjuration on the door (by means of detect magic), Telakin will command his elite guards to make near-continuous distracting noises -- horrible pleading screams calling out for help, monstrous growls and roars, the sound of the adventurers' own voices making snide comments, singing annoyingly catchy songs (in perfect four-part harmony), whatever. They will do so at intermittent intervals, with unpredictable spans of silence as well as noise so that such activity is unpredictable.

During one of the bursts of noise, Telakin (in my campaign a wizard 8/barbarian 5/cleric 5) will take 10 minutes to lay down a glyph of warding on the corridor behind the fire trapped door. The glyph will strike anyone who doesn't follow the doppelgangers' deity (Xan Yae) with a lightning bolt (the spell-glyph can contain any 3rd level spell, so this will generate 8d6 electrical damage, starting with the triggering character, straight down the 5' wide entry corridor and out along the stone bridge).

Having set his own defensive trap, Telakin will attempt casting dispel ward on the fire trapped door. (He got through on the first casting.) He then buffed his own troops mostly with cleric spells, and the plan was to go in as follows:

• Round 1: the elite guards paratroop down onto the water control column, and Telakin immediate-action casts feather fall to have them take no damage from the fall. They have the silence-stone with them, and will land at the end of the round. Telakin then casts defenestrating sphere to displace any adventurer directly guarding the water control column.
• Round 2: the elite guards attack anyone still on the column, with at least one of them taking a standard action to pull the water control lever. If no one is left on the column, they hold their actions to attack anyone who tries to ascend the column. By the end of the round, water is 4 feet deep on the floor of the chamber and the column is 14’ high. Telakin casts confusion to prevent coherent action on the adventurers’ part, as presumably they will be trying to advance on the column in formation. He also moves the defenestrating sphere to where it can do the most good.
• Round 3: the elite guards hold the column against anyone who tries to climb up, or take potshots with light crossbows at anyone who’s trying to tread water (suddenly rushing water is Swim check DC 15, adjusted by armor penalty). By the end of the round, water is 8 feet deep in the chamber and the column is 18’ high, making Jump checks to get topside effectively impossible. Telakin casts web in a corner of the room, trying to entangle as many adventurers as he can and leave them to drown under 40 feet of water. He moves the defenestrating sphere across the surface of the waters, tossing anyone who’s moving towards the column.
• Round 4: the giant octopus comes back into play and starts attacking anyone who is free. The elite guards continue to hold the column against anyone who wants to try to flip the lever back to “drain”, taking crossbow potshots if no one is actively trying to climb the ladder. By the end of the round water is 12 feet deep in the chamber, and the column is now 22 feet above the stone floor. Telakin snipes anyone still free and unconfused with scorching ray, magic missile, or (for anyone breaking free of the web) ray of enfeeblement. He moves the sphere to displace anyone getting close to the column’s ladder.
• Round 5: by the end of the round water is 16 feet deep in the chamber and the column is 26 feet above the floor. Telakin muahahaha’s and casts lightning bolt on the surface of the water above the web, which will deal the bolt damage in a 20’ radius from point of impact with the water.

The problem was, the players didn't QUITE cooperate. They did have most of their number on the floor within this chamber, but also left the warmage and the catfolk swordsage up top on the stone span thrusting out from the door to the doppelganger lair. That complicated matters somewhat -- I still used the invisibility sphere to get in through the door, but the defenestrating sphere wasn't as useful as I hoped. (Both PCs up top rolled surprisingly well on Fort saves, and both had feather fall rings that limited the falling damage.)

He did, however, manage to drop an Evard's black tentacles on the clustered party down by ground level, and that immobilized a huge portion of their potential firepower while his troops tried to pull the lever (but were thwarted, see below). Geert, the human swordsage, fought off the troops trying to pull the lever and then jammed his shortsword into the mechanism, doing enough damage to disable it. Telakin ended up pulling his battered troops back up top after about ten or so rounds of combat, with the party pretty wounded but Telakin having taken substantial damage as well. The catfolk swordsage, Murkarr, had managed to tumble into the corridor with him, then chose to retreat to the map room when she hit the glyph of warding and he blasted her with magic missiles. He arcane locked her in the map room, not realizing she could teleport out (which she did, taking out one more of the wounded troops in the process). Murkarr then tried to get the jump on Telakin, but rolled a 3 and a 2 on her Wolf Fang Strike attacks and cursed mightily. (The warmage managed to down Telakin with his last magic missiles immediately thereafter.)

Name: Murkarr (catfolk scout 3/swordsage 4)
Adventure: Hall of Harsh Reflections
Location: room with the illusory wall
Catalyst: overestimating the wounds of at least one opponent

Murkarr, at 30 hp and feeling somewhat grand, decided to chase down the remaining two elite doppel-guards who had survived their night raid on her own, not waiting for backup. She managed to catch up with one and drop him, but the other one turned, took on her likeness, and full attacked her, dropping her to 10 hp. The next turn, she rolled horribly and he got in a single attack, dropping her into the negatives. At that point...

Name: Geert of the Twilight Monastery (human swordsage 6/twilight tattoo 1 -- a DM-generated PrC similar to the tattooed monk)
Adventure: Hall of Harsh Reflections
Location: corridor outside the room with the illusory wall
Catalyst: backstabbed while trying to retreat with Murkarr's unconscious form

Geert, also able to shadow jaunt, 'ported himself up to the high door in the water control chamber to try to assist Murkarr. Although he didn't fall for the doppelganger's disguise (a good Spot roll combined with a preset code phrase gave it away), he wasn't able to get in enough damage before it had dropped him, too, to 10 hp. Geert ducked through the illusory wall, dragging Murkarr's limp form along with him, and tried to run for the water control chamber... but the doppelganger ran him down, rolled a critical threat, rolled a 20 on the crit confirm, and then rolled max damage on its attack to drop him to -12 in a single round.

With the rest of the party stuck down at the bottom, unable to teleport and lacking good ranks in Use Rope or Climb, it took them a substantial while to both realize that the two swordsages weren't coming back and then get up to the top. In the meanwhile, the surviving doppelgangers had stripped the two PC bodies of gear and posed them in a grotesque mockery of intimacy, surrounded by a circle of staring dead doppelcorpses.

I actually made my players go "Ewwwwwwww!" with my description of the latter. *grin*

Character Name: Rath, Male Dwarf Barbarian

Adventure: Spire of Long Shadows

Location: Eastern Entrance Foyer

Cause of Death: Two-pronged assualt from Eviscerator Beetles from the stairs and three Swords Of Kyuss from the door.

Long version: The party continued to try resting in the ziggaraut. The various disciples of Kyuss vigorously disagreed with that strategy. The Swords of Kyuss used their negative energy bursts to blast open the barricaded doors and moved in to engage the party.

Rath was the front line and the Swords, having multiple uses of negative energy, they took off about two-thirds of his hit-points before even closing to melee range. With the party split between fighting the Swords on one side and the Beetles on the other, Rath was the focus of most of the Swords blows.

After about five or six rounds of combat, Rath dropped to -8 hit points and bled-out before anyone could reach him.

He was later reincarnated, returning to life as an Elf FEMALE!

Character Name: Mufasa, Dire Lion Animal Companion to Vox, the Hobgoblin Druid
Adventure: Spire of Long Shadows

Location: Eastern Foyer

Cause of Death: Swords of Kyuss

In the same battle that killed Rath, Mufasa was negative energy blasted, sliced and diced.

Poor Vox, he is going through animal companions rather quickly these days.

Character Name: Kaidan, Human Fighter/Tempest

Adventure: Spire of Long Shadows

Location: The shaft

Cause of Death: Failed save against the Worm Naga's slay living spell.

Kaidan was climbing down the side of the shaft, when he was hit with the spell attack. He failed and fell from the side of the shaft. Ren, the party's psion, caught his body with telekinesis and brought it to safety, and then Vox, the hobgoblin druid cast reincarnation. Kaidan is now a gnome.

The Spire is racking up a lot of kills, and they haven't even gotten to the REALLLLYY dangerous stuff yet!

Character Name: Cora, Halfling Rogue/Cleric/Shadowdancer

Adventure: Spire of Long Shadows

Location: The Fountain Room

Cause of Death: Multiple Flame Strikes from Worm Callers.

The party had just made it down into the lower regions of the ziggaraut and had defeated an overworm. They decided to move towards the Fountain Room and were in for a nasty surprise when they opened the door.

Rstha, the barbarian was hit with a {i]suggestion[/i] to come in and drink the refreshing water. Ren, the half-elf psion, tried to counter the effects of the suggestion while the rest of the group attacked the worm callers. Two flmaestrikes later, Cora was a charred corpse on the floor of the chamber (-10 hp).

She was reincarnated; coming back as a gnome.

Character Name: Ignatius, Halfling Sorcerer

Adventure: Spire of Long Shadows

Location: The Fountain Room

Cause of Death: Multiple Flamestrikes from Worm Callers

Same as above, except poor Iggy had fewer hit points than Cora. He was reduced to ash (-22 hp) - nothing left toreincarnate!

Character Name: Ren, Half-elf Psion

Adventure: THe Spire of Long Shadows

Location: Sea of Worms

Cause of Death: Overworm bite and swallow

The party came upon the sea of worms and Ren deceded he was going to cast an energy ball into the sea and then used control energy to try to burn as much of it as possible. An enraged overworm burst forth, bit and subsequently swallowed Ren.

The crushing and acid damage finished off Ren, as well as everything he carried, including a fully-charge psi-crown, which exploded. The overworm was splattered and the rest of the party took a fair amount of damage as well.

Unfortunately, there was nothing left to raise, ressurect, or reincarnate.

Character Name: Cora, gnome rogue/cleric/shadowdancer

Adventure: The Spire of Long Shadows

Location: The Knight's Chamber

Cause of Death: One-on-one melee with a Kyuss Knight

Cora, armed with a shortsword capable of sneak attacking undead, closed for combat with one of the knights. Her Attack Modifier limited her success in striking the AC 30 of the Knight. The Knight, on the other hand, had little trouble hitting her. She was reduced to -13 in 3 rounds.

Unfortunately, the party had used up its' revivications. Cora, the last original member of the campaign, will be replaced by a new character.

The Age of Worms ended in deafeat for my players and has seen Kyuss ascendant:

PC Name: Ghostwolf; 21st level Warlock/1st level Enlightened Soul
Adventure: Dawn of a New Age
Location: Top of the Spire

Ghostwolf sacrificed himself in a – futile – attempt to destroy the Wormgod. Ghostwolf allowed his ally Helohm Umlocham to overload his Staff of the Magi which inflicted a massive 432 hit points of damage to Kyuss! This resulted in Kyuss casting time stop to cast harm on himself 3 times! After that Ghostwolf’s surviving companions decided retreat was the better part of valor and teleported away.

PC Name: Dominic Cornelius; 15th level Cleric of Heironious/5th level Thaumaturgist/2nd level Hierophant
Adventure: Dawn of a New Age
Location: Top of the Spire

Dominic Cornelius was beheaded by Kyuss and then resurrected via a wish scroll, a few rounds later he was killed by a Divine Blast and resurrected again by yet another wish scroll – two deaths and 2 lost levels in one battle!

PC Name: Sarina; Celestial Human 18th level Favored Soul of Heironious – Planar Cohort
Adventure: Dawn of a New Age
Location: Top of the Spire

Sarina was slain by Kyuss – Divine Blast and Horrid Wilting – and was revived by Dominic Cornelius – Revenance and True Resurrection.

PC Name: Mebad Heehaw; Half-Orc 20th level Barbarian/1st level Fighter
Adventure: Dawn of a New Age
Location: Top of the Spire

While not technically killed by Kyuss, Mebad was imprisoned under Kyuss’s tower – since the Heroes of Fate fled from the Wormgod, it is more than likely that Mebad’s fate will not be a pleasant one.

Name: Iolo (human bard 8)
Adventure: Hall of Harsh Reflections
Location: Zyrxog's Lair, pool cavern
Catalyst: throwing rocks at a wasp's nest (impulsively shooting arrows at the dozing naga)

Iolo, often given to "here, let's do this! ha, it actually worked!" approaches to conflict, decided to kick-start the tactical approach to the slumbering naga by shooting it with arrows. Unfortunately, he merely lightly wounded it, so it promptly went invisible and decided to inflict some revenge.

Me: "Roll me a Will save." (For a DC of 18.)
Iolo: "Uh... 8."
Me: "Oh dear. OK. Now roll me a Fortitude save."
Iolo: *wearing a puzzled expression* "Nuts. Um. 9?"
Cleric: "I cast resurgence on Iolo."
Iolo: *rolls again* "Damn. 8."
Me: *long-suffering sigh* "Ohhh-kay. You see a shadowy serpent flicker its way across the room towards you like a column of animated smoke, fangs extended and hissing violently. It lashes itself around you, burying its fangs deeply in your neck, and as panic overwhelms you your heart bursts in your chest. You've been slain by a phantasmal killer."

The party panicked and tried to pursue, only to end up running smack-dab into Zyrxog's minions further in the cave. The naga stayed invisible through that entire combat, watching and learning, and only demanded reparations after the party had barely squeaked out a win. To allow them to progress further into the caves, it wanted Iolo's body and all his possessions... so they politely paid it off with other stuff, retreated, and got Iolo's corpse reincarnated. Into of all things (I rolled 00 on the chart, then rolled again and applied something I'd been considering for awhile) a whisper gnome half-silver dragon. Of course, as he was dead through the confrontation with the mind flayer's non-octopin minions, and he got resurrected, he's now some 4500 xp behind the rest of the party... *evil grin*

I almost whacked the goliath fighter with the same trick when the party came back for round 2, but this time the cleric's resurgence was more successful.

Name: Jendy Coline
Class: Fighter 4
Adventure: Three Faces of Evil
Location: Battle temple of Hextor
Catalyst: Disobeying the high priest of Hextor

The party (which as of yet has no name) entered the Dark Cathedral and dealt with the two guards there without triggering the alarm. Afterwards, they entered the Hextorian wing, triggering the skeletal guards within and alerting the complex. After a long and pitched battle, they finally slew all but one of the fanatics and all but one of the skeletons- Jendy became separated from the group and was dropped by Beast. The fanatic then kept a watchful eye on her, ready with his longspear, but the cleric managed to heal her with a spectral hand. The fanatic attempted to put her back down and missed, but the remaining skeleton dropped her again while Beast kept the rest of the party distracted. She was then dragged into the battle temple by the fanatic, and when the party entered in order to save her, they were locked in by Theldrick- except for their "paladin" (secretly a warlock), who was locked outside. Theldrick ordered their surrender, but the paladin refused to cooperate and cast fog cloud to cover his hacking through the door. Theldrick then ordered the fanatic to dispatch the unconscious fighter before joining the fight, who made a coup de grace and rolled max damage, easily snuffing out what was left of her life force.

So that's the story of Jendy- killed by a 1st level commoner. :-D

Biter (human native druid lvl 3) was devoured by Beast in TFOE after its rampage in the temple.

Lucky (Halfling Cleric of Tymora) was killed by an undead Kullen sent after the party as means of revenge after one of his party members made a critical miss, shooting poor Lucky in the back for lots of damage. Then the undead Kullen had no problems finishing the halfling off (from 6 to -11).

PC Name: Galliard (Rogue/Bard)
Adventure: Gathering of Winds
Location of Death: Shadow Web
Catalyst: Too brave and not so smart
Long Description: At 1 hitpoint left, Galliard had to leave melee. After succesfully tumbling out one elder xorns reach, he spent a standard action to cast whirling blade, not hitting either of the two xorns in the area. An instant later, the xorn moved in again and got him.

He was revivified an instant later by Rickas, favorite soul of Kord.

PC Name: Pallas (Paladin)
Adventure: Gathering of Winds
Location of Death: Bridge
Catalyst: Brave
Long Description: At few hitpoints left, Pallas valiantly defended the others from the third elder xorn. But the last full attack proved to be too much.

Rickas delayed; Galliard, just revivified, cast haste; and thus Rickas was able to reach Pallas in time to revivify.

PC Name: Galliard
Adventure: Gathering of Winds
Location of Death: Wind Duke's antechamber
Catalyst: Definetely not smart, and greedy.
Long Description: The gems were looking oh so sweet, but two full attacking reflief golems restored the tombs sanctity.

Rickas didn't have any diamonds left to cast revivify, so the costly true resurrection was needed - a just punishment for the grave robbers.

Name: Matthias Dun
Class: Warlock 3/fighter 1
Adventure: Three Faces of Evil
Location: Caves of Erythnul
Catalyst: Grimlock chieftain

After making their way to the rope bridge in the grimlock caverns, the party battled the three guards there and dropped two of them. The third ran to warn the others, with the party in hot pursuit, and a pitched battle ensued with the 7 grimlocks in the area, and finally the grimlock chieftain himself emerged to join the fracas.
They gave the 'locks a hard time of it, but were slowly whittled down, and in the end a badly hurt Matthias wound up face to face with the chieftain. The chieftain raged and swung his greataxe, and I rolled a nat 20 (I use RPTools, and I keep all the rolls open, so when that 20 came up, everyone said "Nice knowing you, Matt."). I confirmed easily, and rolled damage, but I used the wrong expression to do so- I rolled a 10 on the d12, but it only multiplied the added +6, which wasn't nearly correct. I decided to roll again, hoping to get a low roll this time and give Matt SOME chance at living through the encounter, and what do I get this time?

A 12.

54 points of damage, and Matt was on the floor, cleaved nearly in twain.

666!

I made post 666! I can't believe nobody else caught that!

As for deaths we've had a lot. Most grisly scene for our group was Spire of Long Shadows, followed by the encounter with Darl and his gang. The party would have been total TPK had I not pulled some punches on that night.

Cuchulainn, you've killed 7 Player Characters in the Spire of Long Shadows alone! That's wonderful!

Well, we had our first death 2 weeks ago today.

A warforged Fighter in Eberron.. Whats that you say, Warforged cant die.. Well ok.. crushed to the size of a cigarette box.. Would be the better way of putting it..

Even though the evidence was quite vivid, and detailed and (even fresh blood was added) he still stepped into the elevator in the cairn.. TUT TUT..

well quickest death i have ever dealt with. :)

Oh, we have had a few deaths in the Age of Worms to date, but never have I felt the need to boast of them here. I am feeling that perhaps it is time for that to change!

From the first TPK way back in the Faces of Three Evils, my gaming group has been plagued by death. Some of it caused by nothing more sinister than a critical from a great-axe, others simply from poor party tactics and a stubborn refusal to retreat.

They are now in the Spire of Long Shadows, and while they are far from dead, they are almost exclusively feebleminded. There is no one left to teleport them out of the Zigguarat of Kyuss or heal their affliction. Only the party rogue remains in full mental capacity, and all he can really do is laugh at them.

Splurggut the Worm Naga may be dead, but the last laugh is certainly his.

PC Name: Galliard (Rogue/Bard)
Adventure: Spire of Long Shadows
Location of Death: Outside obsidian ring
Catalyst: Wacky plan, bad rolls
Long Description: After agreeing on a trade with Sruggut, Galliard, Rickas (Fav Soul) and Sama the Sorcerer teleported out. Beeing leery, Rickas wanted to cast dimensional anchor on Sruggut, but failed his save against the feeblemind gaze attack... Next in initiative order was Sruggut who cast slay living on Galliard. Sama then hectically cast another teleport back into the ziggurat... Consequently, Sruggut is free now and has a blast heading towards Cauldron...

Galliard was truely resurrected by Agath. Again.

Name: Melodious Loreseeker
Race/Occupation: Gnome/bard 1
Module: The Whispering Cairn
Where/what: In the lair of the architect, as the last member of the party witing to go back up he was hit with the sleep ray from the lurking strangler. He botched his save and was strangled while the rest of the party waited for him to come back up. Eventually two party members came back down and dispatched the beastie.

It really sucks because I had just finished doing quite a bit of conversion on his mini :( But that's the way the die rolls.

PC Name: Bug (Elf Rogue/Wizard)
Adventure: Hall of Harsh Reflections
Cause: impolite companions

Bug and the rest of the party met with the naga in the tunnels leading to zyrxogs lair. Party cleric insults the overbearing aberration. It attacks, killing bug and driving the rest of the party off (except party fighter/wizard) who kills it.

Bugs sorry corpse is dragged back to the surface to be raised.

PC Name Bug (Elf Rogue/Wizard)
Adventure: Hall of Harsh Reflections
Cause: low wisdom, bad tactics.

Bug, (freshly raised) and the rest of the party (fully healed) head back to zyrxogs lair the following the yellow mold trap in the hall has been reset, the corpses of the drow guards have been taken away. Corpse of the naga is where they left it. Bug walks up to corpse of naga and kicks it. Zombified Naga rises up and bites him, he fails fort save and dies at -3 con.

perhaps it was harsh to have the Drow cleric unhallow and then animate the naga, but i figured that zyrxog would do something to re-secure his lair.

Bug's player decided not to ressurect him again.

Name: Sly
Race/Occupation: Halfling/rogue 2
Module: The Whispering Cairn
Where/what: In Alastors Haunt, the rogue went forward by herself, leaving the next closet member of the party hanging on the lamp chain. She set the trap off, was knocked into the pit and subsequently devoured before the party came to find out what she was screaming about. They did get to see her remains being pulled under the spheres by some tentacles though ;).

Zombified Naga rises up and bites him, he fails fort save and dies at -3 con.

Name: Johannsen
Race/Occupation: Dwarf/Cleric 2
Module: The Whispering Cairn
Where/what: In the Chamber of Sighs, the dwarf cleric was grappled and pulled off the edge of the walkway by a Wind Warrior.